the curse word annex of amymauk.com

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“Who ARE You?”

The subject line refers to the title of a Facebook message sent to me by someone I hadn’t talked to since roughly 1993, the year I left the suburbs of southern Atlanta for Kentucky. With apologies to the Kentucky friends, that place was never my home. From the first morning I woke, startled, in my new bedroom (having the “where the fuck am I?!” thought usually gotten at slumber parties), I had a single-minded focus on getting the hell out of there.

Get good grades, get scholarships, get out of town.

Sixteen years went by, and now the internet is bringing you all back, one friend request at a time. In light of this, I thought it might be time to get the recent additions up to speed.

After high school, I ended up as a Sound Engineering major at Belmont University. It turned out not to be the creative fun that I thought, given that I don’t enjoy having entire conversations about milliseconds of delay and analog vs digital. My refusal to listen to Steeley Dan was also frowned upon. I finished the degree, but got out and realized I was only qualified to write papers.

I came THIS close to going to FIT in New York to get a master’s in History of Dress, but ended up going to study graphic design at Watkins College. As college majors go, it was kind of an impulse buy; I made the fall deadline by about two days. Eight years later, I’m still designing stuff. My favorite things are Flash, multimedia, and illustration. My portfolio is at http://www.evilamy.com (plug, plug) and I’m generally always looking for freelance work. I’m pretty sure I’m going back to school (AGAIN) in the fall to become a web developer. I have a college problem; I can’t seem to stay out. Wtf.

This isn’t to say that I think design is my “gift.” I do OK and I’m better at meeting a deadline than a lot of other people, but it’s not the thing I do with a little more magic than everybody else. Or maybe it is. I can look at a person for five seconds and tell them what their magic is, but I don’t know what mine would be. What I DO know is that I’d leave design tomorrow for a book deal. In the tradition of Oprah, I have started using the phrase, “when I get my book deal…” as some form of fucked-up positive visualization. She says you have to name it to claim it. Well, I’m naming it ad nauseum. “Stay tuned for my book! It’s being published by Kinkos!” It’s gonna be spiral-bound and buy-one-get-one-free, so you can give a copy to a friend. Said friend will love it and promptly cyberstalk me, adding me on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and whatever the hell else some developer invents to make me have to crosspost my blogs. Cyberstalk me. Google me. Just don’t show up on my porch or send me naked pictures.

OK, fine. Send naked pictures. Whatever.

“But, Amy, haven’t you devoted yourself to washing the socks of a man who will be the only person you ever have sex with for the rest of your life?”

No. While I’m open to the idea of living in sin with the right person, I have not yet met someone who would be consistently allowed to be IN MY HOUSE every time I come home. Unless you count my cat and, yes, I realize how crazy that sounds. You haven’t met my cat. He is KICK ASS.

“But, Amy, haven’t you forced a human body through your vagina?”

No. Not today, not tomorrow, not next week. Hell, if I had a surgeon sitting next to me right now, I’d be talking said surgeon into tying my tubes instead of writing this blog. If I ever have time and money that would be spent on a child, I would go volunteer somewhere and help raise somebody else’s kids, or at least try to teach them to play the piano.

“What’s with the (evil) moniker?”
Oh yeah. I came out of the coffin sometime in late 1997 or early 1998. I was always kind of weird, but it didn’t show on the outside until college, when I realized that there was an entire genre of music that sounded like Depeche Mode. Goth has a dark sense of humor, a punkish sensibility, and good hair. I couldn’t resist. I am fully aware that I own pink clothing. It’s ironic. For serious.

Answers to other popular questions:

1. I’ve been in Nashville since 1996. I’m not “from” here, but 13 years is a long enough time for me to be tired of dating dudes who are in bands though, horribly, I still totally do it. Will I ever learn? (In my defense, if I swore off musicians, I would never date again. EVERYONE is in a band here. Then again…I kind of never date as it is. Cue the tiny violins.)